Biodegradable chewing gum here to clean up the streets

Hoopla! Biodegradable chewing gum is here at last! Soon the pain and misery caused from stepping in freshly-discarded gum could be over. Assuming that is, that every gum-chewer in the country decides to switch from their regular brand to the new Chicza Rainforest Gum. And as it costs £1.39 a packet, from Waitrose we’re not holding out much hope for a major change in attitudes any time soon.

Cleaning up chewing gum from the streets costs local councils hundreds of thousands of pounds every year, with each individual piece costing between 10p and 30p to shift. Chicza however, will crumble to dust in about six weeks, will dissolve in water or be absorbed into the soil. There is no word on whether it will stick to your ribs when swallowed, like all current conventional gum does.

It says here that Chicza Rainforest Gum is manufactured in Mexico by Consorcio Chiclero - a consortium of 56 co-operatives employing some 2,000 chicleros (gum farmers) and their families. The workers extract natural gum from the sap of the chicle tree, which is then used to make the product. Bitterwallet’s natural scepticism has us thinking that it probably tastes like one of Jonny Wilkinson’s old jock straps. Approach with caution.